Written by

Quartz Staff

February 22, 2013

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Written by

Quartz Staff

February 22, 2013

Good morning, Quartz readers!

What to watch for today

What lies ahead for Afghanistan. A summit of NATO defense ministers focused on the status of international forces in central Asia concludes today, with ministers considering a plan to pay for a larger Afghan army. That will no doubt thrill NATO’s finance ministers.

Barack Obama sees his fifth Japanese prime minister in as many years. A summit meeting between the leaders of the world’s biggest and third-biggest economies in Washington, DC will focus on disputed islands, North Korea, monetary policy and the trans-Pacific trade pact.

Italy votes on Sunday. The eurozone’s third-biggest economy is deep in the middle of a recession and its politics are a joke—literally. Beppe Grillo, a comedian, faces off against Silvio Berlusconi, about whom the less is said, the better. Neither will become prime minister but both promise to make parliament, um, interesting. Cyprus will also go to the polls for the second round of its presidential election.

German businesses looked bullish. Business confidence among German executives jumped to a 10-month high in February according to the IFO index. Other signs are encouraging too: the DAX benchmark index has gained 10% in the past three months and despite a 0.6% contraction in Q4 GDP, economists expect growth to return in the current quarter.

Air France-KLM is still losing money. The Franco-Dutch airline company posted a full-year net loss of €1.19 billion ($1.57 billion) for 2012, some €300 million more than the previous year. Meanwhile, Air Berlin declared a net profit for the first time in five years. Germany’s second-largest carrier made €6.8 million in 2012, a refreshing change from 2011’s €420 million loss.

Singapore posted robust growth figures.The city-state grew an annualized 3.3% in the last quarter of 2012, a big reversal from the 4.6% contraction the previous quarter. Analysts are reading the numbers as a sign of an Asian recovery.

Tata may take the Nano to Malaysia. This week Tata announced it was joining up with AirAsia to get back into aviation 60 years after its last airline was nationalized. Now it looks like the partnership may yield other dividends as well: talks are on to build and sell the Nano, its small cheap car, in alliance with AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes.

Lily Kuo on China’s efforts to control pollution by banning barbecue. “As one would say in Chinese with emphasis, fangpi–which means rubbish (or, literally, ‘fart’). True, charcoal-burning grills that make Xinjiang-style meat skewers dot many small streets in Chinese cities. But they are far from the real root of China’s pollution: resistance from state-owned companies and local governments, poor regulation, and the country’s large population. However, when pollution in Beijing in January reached more than 20 times international standards deemed as safe, it was blamed mostly on emissions from coal-burning power stations and car exhaust.” Read more here.

Matters of debate

Can Japan spend $100 billion in just fifteen months? If not, we’d like to give it a shot.